The Chopin I Love | Frederic Chopin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet

The Chopin I Love | Frederic Chopin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet | One of the best CDs I heard of anything

classical music:

The Chopin I Love

	The Chopin I Love Frederic Chopin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet Decca, 2000 average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Chopin didn't like public concerts in large venues, and he played very few of them, preferring salons and home concerts. But he also admired the way his pupil Guttman could play his music with greater power than Chopin could ever muster. Thibaudet is a sensitive musician of the Guttman type. Although he can create intimacy, his basic style at the modern grand piano is very public, sounding as if he's playing to the top row at Carnegie Hall. It can sometimes be a bit much for hearing in a small living room, but this is still an attractive Chopin recital, a varied and generous program, all played very well. And it comes with its own built-in contrast: a bonus mini-recital of four items taken from a TV documentary in which Thibaudet plays a Broadwood piano that Chopin himself played in 1848. The instrument automatically reduces the scale of the music, making it more intimate, and Thibaudet adapts successfully to its character. Maybe, if we get lucky, Thibaudet will record a whole CD on this piano! --Leslie Gerber

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HEART -ACHING ROMANTICISM

Thibaudet is rapidly becoming my favorite in the crop of current 'star' pianists. His recordings of Ravel and Debussy and Liszt are tops in the field and now this CD of Chopin piano solo music has been released and it is just as fine. This sampling of Etudes, Mazurkas and Nocturnes, etc. are all played so perfectly: this is heart-aching Romanticism at its peak. Decca has also been generous: the recording is actually more than 78 minutes long. The 4 bonus tracks played on Chopin's own piano prove to be more than just a clever gimmick. It is really interesting for an amateur like myself to compare the composer's piano with the pianist's. Thibaudet is quoted in the fine essay that comes along with the CD: "...the beautiful thing is that his (Chopin's) spirit is alive and in his music." Yes...especially in this lovely album. Very Highly Recommended.

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One of the best CDs I heard of anything

Wow! surely the best 1 CD compilation of Chopin's music. Here familiar works are presented as if they were discovered yesterday. Such a freshness !!!! tempi, phrasing, articulation, are outstanding! Lucid, vivid, not grandiloquent or mannered. For instance take the eroic polonaise! At first not a great thing, seems weak but then remember polonaise was not a warrior dance but instead a stately, full of dignity. And that is what you hear! Listen to how the piece is growing with captivating power. I could go on citing examples of the mastery Thibaudet brings to all pieces. And then ... as if this were not enough ... change instrument!!! he chose for the last tracks a period piano, Chopin's piano! Simply wonderfull! And then ... wow! 2 of that pieces are also played previously on a modern Steinway, so you have here a little "comparative discography". Discover the different approaches to same music with different instruments!
With a hand in your heart tell me: what else can you ask for in 78 min of music??? This CD is a must

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CHOPIN'S ROMANTICISM

WHoa! This cd is amazing! If you want to start with Chopin start with this one. It includes Chopin's most known works like the Polonaise in A flat, Nocturne in E flat, among others. This cd gives you a good start with an orotund performance. Never start classical with a bad performance because it will ruin your ears!Otherwise, if you already have Chopin, listen to this cd because it includes some bonus tracks played in Chopin's piano(that's funny, I mean what for?? haha) so at least you will hear the piano Chopin played. :). A very good piano player as well.

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Perfection

I was first taken with Thibaudet's mastery of the piano when I heard the score for "Pride & Prejudice", written by Dario Marianelli. Now I'm looking up Thibaudet's recordings of other music, and I decided to start here, since Chopin has always been one of my absolute favorites.

I'm very picky about my Chopin recordings; I can't stand listening to recordings of Chopin that are played technically well but without feeling and expression. However, Thibaudet manages to put great feeling into the pieces without distorting their technical rhythm and their original intent.

It was also an extremely nice touch that recordings were made on the Broadwood piano that Chopin himself played. My only complaint (from the standpoint of one who works as a piano technician / restoration specialist / tuner) is that the poor old Broadwood is in desperate need of technical attention. It sounded quite flat and significantly out of tune, although it is possible that its age prevents greater results without a full restoration.

The only piece that I felt was missing from the disc was "Fantasie-Impromptu," which I am currently looking for in a Thibaudet recording.

However, this disc is an absolute marvel, and Thibaudet's playing is second-to-none. This disc is an absolute must-have.

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A disappointing disc from a great pianist

It is one of the unfortunate limitations of this venue that reviews for any given item seem to presuppose a general audience, and it's not possible for reader or reviewer to state his or her frame(s) of reference. A CD review by a musician is not necessarily *better* than one by a non-musician, but it is likely to be relevant for different listeners. But even among musicians it's obvious that one musician will not necessarily agree with another just because they are both musicians.

Reviewing classical music is further complicated for the fact that the kind of review one might read in something like Grammophone is usually only useful for those already somehow initiated into the esoteric vocabulary and culture of the classical music industry (i.e., people for whom abbreviations like LSO and DG mean something or names like Kapustin and Takemitsu are as integral to the parlance as Beethoven and Bach). On the other hand, the kind of review that likes to use words and phrases like "awe-inspiring!" or "emotionally charged!" or "beautiful!" tend to be useful only to those whose ability to listen to music begins by pressing the 'play' button on a CD player.

On the one hand, Thibaudet is judicious in keeping a tight rein on the ever-present temptation in Chopin to pass into the kind of vulgar sentimentality that permits people to enjoy the pieces as wonderful elevator music and find him "just beautiful!"

Given Thibaudet's excellent showings in the French literature and the Rachmaninoff concerti, there was no question that his technial mastery was up to the challenge of playing the pieces on this disc in one respect.

In another, Chopin is like Mozart in the sense that many of his pieces are not technically difficult. The waltzes and nocturnes, for example, can be played reasonably well by reasonably talented young teenagers, just as a gifted pianist might play Mozart sonatas at ten.

This does not mean, however, that a ten-year-old will play a Mozart sonata well, even if the student's technical mastery is up to the task (or, for that matter, that certain young Chinese pianists who shall remain nameless with excellent technique have the maturity or intellect to play pieces well). Both Chopin and Mozart are deceptive in their simplicity and it is for this reason that so many interpretations abound.

Thibaudet is faithful to the standard Chopin tradition, so no innovations are to be found on this disc. While this per se is not a fault, Thibaudet's decision to remain loyal to that tradition then forces him to be responsible to the exemplars of that tradition, and the question becomes whether or not he is worthy to be its heir.

The recording of the famous A-flat polonaise is sloppy such that the sound is hollow in some places and muddy in others. Some seem to like Thibaudet's phrasing here, but in my opinion he tends to be dismissive and instead of the familiar majesty we get from someone like Horowitz or Lhevinne, we get something that feels artificially restrained.

The D-flat waltz ('Minute') is competent, but has nothing of the excitement of various and countless others or the astonishment of Hofmann's legendary playing of this piece (at tempo, no less) in thirds.

The E-flat waltz is played nicely, though the piece itself is rather facile. Similarly, the E-minor prelude is basically a student piece.

The B-flat scherzo lacks the impetuousness it deserves in the middle section (either that, or Thibaudet's score lacks the marking 'con fuoco'), and Thibaudet's Steinway is tinny in the upper registers and incapable of satisfying the dynamics in the score. (Even the young but surprisingly mature pianist Yundi Li has a better recording of this piece.)

The famous C-minor etude was unexciting and lacked the nuance of someone like Cortot; the D-minor etude was nicely played, however.

Instead of going on, I hope I've at least given some sense of my reasons for this rating. Unfortunately, another limitation of reviewing CDs with words is the fact that words fail at describing the experience of hearing music. I have tried, instead, to provide a basis for comparison for those who are interested. At the very least, the glut of recordings and performances of Chopin--most of which tend to be amateurish and mediocre--in itself provides reason to be judicious and even stringent in our evaluations. It is one thing to acknowledge the greatness of Chopin's music. It is another to dish out vapid praise just because it's Chopin. Even Chopin wrote some fairly insipid music, some of which is on this disc (which feels more like one of those "best of..." compilations that milk sentimentality out of piano music instead of having something interesting to say about Chopin). This rating is not an insult to Thibaudet's musicianship. In fact, it is out of respect for it that one must expect more from this disc than was given. Even if the playing was a bit heavy, at least Pletnev's Carnegie Hall debut took some chances to reveal some interesting things that no one had heard before in the scherzi. I fail to see that Thibaudet has anything interesting to say about Chopin (especially if the majority of the works on this disc are not particularly interesting in themselves). Chopin is such a familiar name that the criteria for evaluating his music have to be more than the fact that he's emotionally "moving" or "touching".

Finally, don't be fooled by the advertisement that there are tracks played "on Chopin's own piano". Read the cover carefully: "for the bonus tracks, [Thibaudet] plays the Broadwood piano that Chopin chose for his 1848 concerts in England". (Incidentally, two of the pieces chosen for these tracks--the F-major etude and D-minor prelude were interesting and well-chosen selections.)

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